Even though the military seized power in Egypt on July 3, the United States is still going to deliver four F-16 fighter jets to the North African state. This transferal of some of the most sophisticated and expensive defense hardware follows a pattern of Pentagon domination of the domestic and foreign policy imperatives of Cairo. Since the implementation of the Camp David Accords in 1979 under the Carter administration, Egypt has become the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance next only to the State of Israel. The $US1.5 billion in annual assistance from Washington is not designed for the benefit of the Egyptian people but for the protection of the interests of Wall Street, the Pentagon and the intelligence apparatus of the world’s leading imperialist state.
Category: Head Stories
While Russian experts have issued a report about an investigation into chemical weapons use in Syria, the Syrian Armed Forces seized a massive chemical depot from foreign backed insurgents after a heavy gunfight. The seized chemicals would, according to Syrian sources, have been sufficient to cause mass death on an unprecedented scale. The seizure of the chemicals from the insurgents coincides with recent intelligence reports, according to which a renewed, political and military campaign against Syria will be initiated by the “opposition”, the insurgents, and the international alliance behind the war on Syria. The war has claimed more than 93.000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands, since 2011.
Egypt is at war. More accurately, Egypt is experiencing yet another battle in its ongoing class war. The battle is so fierce because the primary combatants are the two most powerful social forces in Egypt, both factions of the capitalist class – the military as the state capitalist class and the Ikhwan (the Muslim Brotherhood) representing the competitive capitalist class. The military’s most recent explicit intervention into the political domain is assuredly not revolutionary. Nor is it cause for optimism. It is also not the ahistorical coup of liberal commentary. As a battle between two different kinds of property in Egypt, this is a further descent along the retrogressive trajectory set by the events of 25 January 2011. Egyptian politics are increasingly counter-revolutionary.
Political crisis deepens amid failure of neo-colonial state to address people’s needs At least 54 people have been reported killed outside the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo on the morning of July 8. Witnesses from the ongoing sit-in organized by the Muslim Brotherhood demanding the return of President Mohamed Morsi to office say that the shooting was unprovoked and resulted in the deaths of innocent men, women and children. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) which seized power on July 3 immediately denied responsibility for the massacre and claimed that their soldiers were attacked by armed people within the crowd. Military spokespersons say that their forces were merely acting in self-defense against purported “terrorists.”
Violent clashes spread in Egypt as US backs army coup The Journal called for Washington to “help Egypt gain access to markets, international loans, and investment capital. The US now has a second chance to use its leverage to shape a better outcome. Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.” Clashes spread throughout Egypt yesterday as security forces cracked down on protests by supporters of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) President Mohamed Mursi, who was ousted in a coup Wednesday. The coup—launched with US support to end mass protests against Mursi and pre-empt the development of a political movement in the working class—now threatens to plunge Egypt into civil war.
In 2012, Professor Seralini of the University of Caen in France led a team that carried out research into the health impacts on rats fed GMOs (genetically modified organisms) (1). The two-year long study concluded that rats fed GMOs experienced serious health problems compared to those fed non GM food. Now comes a new major peer-reviewed study that has appeared in another respected journal. This study throws into question the claim often forwarded by the biotech sector that GMO technology increases production and is beneficial to agriculture.
Researchers at the University of Canterbury in the UK have found that the GM strategy used in North American staple crop production is limiting yields and increasing pesticide use compared to non-GM farming in Western Europe.
It is not that important from what source U.S. intelligence received a signal that Edward Snowden would be transported out of Russia on the airplane of Bolivian President Evo Morales; the important thing is that the information turned out to be disinformation. Through allied governments in Europe – France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – Washington tried to organize a humiliating inspection of the presidential airplane in violation of all international conventions and treaties on the immunity of state leaders… It is difficult to say what the airplane’s pilots felt when at the very last moment the previously agreed-upon air corridors were closed to them and they were denied landings for refueling.
The road that has been taken in Egypt is a dangerous one. A military coup has taken place in Egypt while millions of Egyptians have cheered it on with little thought about what is replacing the Muslim Brotherhood and the ramifications it will have for their society. Many people in cheering crowds have treated the Egyptian military’s coup like it was some sort of democratic act. Little do many of them remember who the generals of the Egyptian military work for. Those who are ideologically opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood have also cheered the military takeover without realizing that the military takeover ultimately serves imperialist behaviour. The cheering crowds have not considered the negative precedent that has been set.
“[US Defense Secretary] Hagel and [US Chief of Staff General] Dempsey were walking a fine line … expressing concern while attempting to avoid the impression that the U.S. was manipulating events behind the scenes.” (Military.com, July 3, 2013) The protest movement is directed against the US and its proxy Muslim Brotherhood regime. The Muslim Brotherhood had been spearheaded into the government with the support of Washington as a “replacement” rather than an “alternative” to Hosni Mubarak, who had faithfully obeyed the orders of the Washington Consensus from the outset of his presidency.
Egypt’s Anti-American Protest Movement The swift action by Egypt’s military to arrest Mohamed Morsi and key leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood organization on July 3 marks a major setback for Washington’s “Arab Spring” strategy of using political Islam to spread chaos from China through Russia across the energy-rich Middle East. Morsi rejected the Defense Minister‘s demand that he quit to avert a bloodbath. He said he stood by his “constitutional dignity” and demanded the army’s withdrawal of its ultimatum. It may become the major turning point of America’s decline as world Sole Superpower when future generations of historians view events.